Supreme Court Postpones Kim Keon-hee 'Stock Price Manipulation' Appeal Sentencing to 24th... Reviewing Yoon's Guilty Verdict

Special Prosecutor’s Request Partially Accepted
Conflicting Rulings for the Couple on the ‘Myung Taegyun Opinion Polls’

The Supreme Court has postponed the sentencing of the appeal trial involving Mrs. Kim Keon-hee’s allegations of involvement in the Deutsche Motors stock price manipulation and related cases, which was originally scheduled for July 16, to July 24. It appears that the court accepted a request from the special prosecutor team led by Min Jungki to jointly review the first-instance judgment that found former President Yoon Suk-yeol guilty regarding Myung Taegyun’s alleged provision of free opinion polling services.

First Lady Kim Keonhee, who has been indicted on charges of "maegwanmaejik," is attending the first trial sentencing hearing for the case of receiving bribes under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes at the Seoul Central District Court. Photo by Yonhap News Agency, provided by Seoul Central District Court

The Supreme Court's second division (Presiding Justice Park Young-jae) announced on July 15 that the sentencing date for Mrs. Kim’s appeal trial—covering charges of violating the Capital Markets Act, the Political Funds Act, and the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Crimes (mediation bribery)—has been changed to 2 p.m. on July 24. Initially, sentencing had been scheduled for 10:15 a.m. on July 16.

The special prosecutor team had requested at least a one-month postponement of Mrs. Kim’s sentencing, arguing on the previous day that it was necessary to review the first-instance judgment in former President Yoon’s Political Funds Act violation case.

Former President Yoon Suk-yeol and Mrs. Kim were prosecuted on charges of receiving a total of 270 million won worth of free opinion polling services (58 times) from political broker Myung Taegyun between June 2021 and March 2022.

In both the first and second trials for Mrs. Kim, the courts acquitted her and her husband on this charge, citing that Myung had provided opinion polling services to other people as well, making it difficult to conclude that the couple received property gains equivalent to the cost of the surveys.

In contrast, the 33rd Criminal Division of the Seoul Central District Court (Chief Judge Lee Jinkwan) found Yoon guilty on July 13 of 14 counts of receiving free opinion polling services, sentencing him to two years in prison. The court ruled that there was a sequential and implicit agreement regarding the provision of free opinion polls among Yoon, Mrs. Kim, and Myung.

With conflicting rulings for the couple on the same charges, the special prosecutor team argued that “there are concerns over contradictions and inconsistencies between the original verdict for Mrs. Kim and the separate ruling,” and insisted that further review was necessary.

In addition to the Political Funds Act violation charges, Mrs. Kim was also found guilty of participating in the Deutsche Motors stock price manipulation and of accepting money and valuables from the Unification Church. In the second trial, she was sentenced to four years in prison and a fine of 50 million won.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.